Gallienus

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Under Gallienus in AD two sixty-three it was again seized by an usurping emperor and shared the fate of his adherents.

The soldiers of Gallienus sacked Byzantium from cellar to garret and made such a slaughter of its inhabitants that it is said that the old Megarian race who had so long possessed it were absolutely exterminated.

But the irresistible attraction of the site was too great to allow its ruins to remain desolate.

Within ten years after its sack by the army of Gallienus, we find Byzantium again a populous town, and its inhabitants are specially praised by the historian Trebellius Pollio for the courage with which they repelled a Gothic raid in the reign of Claudius II.

The strong Illyrian emperors, who staved off from the Roman Empire the ruin which appeared about to overwhelm it in the third quarter of the third century, gave Byzantium time and peace to recover its ancient prosperity.

It profited especially from the constant neighborhood of the imperial court after Diocletian fixed his residence at Nicomedia, only sixty miles away, on the Bithynian side of the Propontis.

So effectively, in Rome 260, Rome controlled Italy, the Balkans, North Africa, and not much else.

And then walks in Gallienus, who ruled jointly with his father Valerian from 253 and alone from 260 to 268.

Under Gallienus, the silver coinage did not decline.

It basically evaporated.

The numbers from coin analysis, fineness had been drifting downwards for decades.

Call it around 40% by 250 CE.

Under Gallienus, in roughly a decade, it fell to around 4%.

And in some issues, even lower.

However, the Romano-Gallic army was an experienced force.

They had successfully crushed Germans, usurpers and rebel cities and had twice defeated the excellent military emperor Gallienus.

They were still a cohesive and strong enough force to fight Aurelian without their emperor.

Nevertheless, the Gallic army was slaughtered in a massive and hard-fought battle that reunited the empire, but also, due to the Gallic losses, temporarily compromised the security of the Rhine frontier.

Adore the gods who guard the empire and forsake those things which are contrary to nature." Dionysius answered, "All men do not worship all gods, but men worship variously according to their sentiments.

But we worship the one God, the maker of all things, who gave the empire to the most clement emperors, Valerian and Gallienus, to whom we pour out incessant prayers for their prosperous administration." "What can be the meaning?" says Aemilian.

"Why, you may not still adore the God of yours, supposing him to be a God, in conjunction with our gods." Dionysius answered, "We worship no other God." From this remarkable question of the prefect, it is evident that men might have been tolerated in the worship of Jesus if they had allowed idolaters also to be right in the main by associating idols with the true God.

The firmness of Christians in this respect provoked their enemies.

His persecution must have been a sin against the light, and it is common with divine providence to punish such in a very exemplary manner.

The church was restored to rest after Valerian's captivity.

About the year 262, Gallienus his son and successor, in other respects no reputable emperor, proved a sincere friend to the Christians, stopped the persecution by edicts, and had the condescension to give the bishops his letters of license to return to their pastoral charges.

Here follows one of them preserved by Eusebius.

He was seized by the servants of Paternus, the proconsul of Carthage, and brought into his council-chamber.

The sacred emperors, Valerian and Gallienus, says Paternus, have done me the honor to direct letters to me, in which they have decreed that all men ought to adore the gods whom the Romans adore, and on pain of being slain with the sword.

I have heard that you despise the worship of the gods, whence I advise you to consult for yourself and honor them.

I am a Christian, replied the prelate, and know no God but the one true God who created heaven and earth, the sea and all things in them.

You are all pardoned, provided you return to a natural duty, adore the gods who guard the empire, and forsake those things which are contrary to nature.

Dionysius answered, All men do not worship all gods, but men worship variously according to their sentiments.

But we worship the one God, the maker of all things, who gave the empire to the most clement emperors, Valerian and Gallienus, to whom we pour out incessant prayers for their prosperous administration.

What can be the meaning, says Aemilian? Why, you may not still adore the God of yours, supposing him to be a God, in conjunction with our gods.

You know, one of the things that Mateo and I love about the great characters in, in Roman history is that they were tremendous talent scouts, and they believed in the meritocracy.

So if you look at somebody like, and he doesn't get much in the way of kudos by historians, a Gallienus, or if you look at an Aurelian, or you look at an Aetius, or certainly going back further to a Caesar, these guys could spot exceptional skills, and they elevated it regardless of where it came from.

So Justinian is one of those extraordinary talent scouts.

He believed in meritocracy, and he looked for talent regardless of its origins or the wrapper in which it was put.

So he is someone who has a l- you know, g- a good amount of status with the ruling system in Rome.

So he's does very well, in particular with an emperor named Gallienus from 260 onwards.

So she marries well, we might say.

[laughs]

The sources are, uh, you know, not particularly coherent on this point, but he had done very well for himself as someone who was loyal to Rome.

He'd got his own titles.

He called himself King of Kings by this point, which is actually a nod to Persia as well, and he's sort of trusted by the emperor of the time, which was a, a man named Gallienus, to sort of take care of the East, essentially.

Just, just, you know, be trusted and, and be there so that Gallienus could go off and deal with things in the West-

It was rather that his subjects had abdicated their old claim to be called a free and sovereign people and were ready to be slaves.

The whole senatorial order had been debarred by Gallienus from entering the army and had acquiesced without apparent protest in an edict which closed to its members the profession of arms.

Diocletian thought that his throne would be safer by removing it from the ken of the outside world, by shielding it from vulgar approach, by deepening the mystery and impressiveness attaching to palaces, by elaborating the court ceremonial and exalting even the simplest of domestic services into the dignity of a liturgy.

It may be that these changes intensified the servility of the subject and sapped still further the manhood and self-respect of the race.

For fully half a century, with brief interludes of terror, the church had been gathering strength and boldness.

The policy of the state towards it was one of indifference.

Gallienus, indeed, the worthless son of Valerian, had issued edicts of toleration, which might be considered cancelled by the later edicts of Aurelian, or might not.

If the state wished to be savage, it could invoke the one set.